Tools

Inoffensive Ben Stiller vehicle adapts James Thurber’s 1939 short story about a meek magazine photo clerk who fends off his slimy new boss (Adam Scott) and wins the love of an office mate (Kristen Wiig) while daydreaming his way out of such genuinely scary predicaments as fleeing an Icelandic volcano, jumping off a ship into the icy North Sea, dodging bullets in Afghanistan, etc. Stiller could play Walter Mitty in his sleep, and maybe he actually did. Costarring Sean Penn as a dashing photojournalist. Screenplay adaptation by Steve Conrad, directed by Stiller (114 min.).
ByKelly Vance